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The Logarithmic Abacus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2016
Extract
“One of the fruits of the higher education is the illuminating view that a logarithm is merely a number that is found in a table. We shall have to widen the curriculum.”
(Kasner and Newman)As H. G. Wells pointed out a long time ago, in the country of the blind the two-eyed man tends to misjudge his neighbours. Relying almost entirely upon his power of vision, he ignores the other senses, and thinks that to be blind is to be mentally defective. In fact, a blind person sometimes has a more balanced mind than the man with keen edges, ten thumbs and ingrowing ears!
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- Research Article
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- Copyright
- Copyright © The Mathematical Association 1951
References
Page 83 of note* See Note 2074 on page 281 of the December 1949 issue. I do believe that the connection between digits, powers, indices, logarithms and funotions can be grasped unless xn is defined as the instruction “Multiply ONE by x n times”. Any other definition is an optical illusion!
Page 84 of note* I realised some time ago that the method of calculating logarithms by extracting successive square roots was already known to mathematicians, and it is ascribed by one modern text-book to Professor Perry and Mr. Edser. I am obliged to the Editor for pointing out that the method is at least as old as Briggs, and that certain oomparatively recent and very authoritative German books actually define a logarithm in this way.